Writing, but not writing about Petra, Jordan 還未寫的約旦佩特拉

If you’ve been following my blog you might remember I started writing about my travels to Jordan a while ago, in fact I can’t believe it’s been two months since I wrote about Jerash and Wadi Rum! Petra was next on my list.
原來上次寫約旦之旅已經是兩個月之前的事。 開始寫了瓦地倫及傑拉什之後， 應該要寫佩特拉。 這個世界著名的古城很多人已經寫過，還寫得非常好，所以我不想草草了事交功課。 我想好好跟大家分享我見到佩特拉遺址第一眼的感受，和在豪雨下緊急被疏散的情況。 又或者攀山沿途見到這個玫瑰城的美景， 到山上後見石雕出來宏偉的建築物，感覺是不可思議。 除了美景，還有我遇到的人。 有本地居民利用驢子和駱駝賺錢， 看在眼裏心裏很不舒服。 還有跟天真活潑的小孩子在嬉戲， 我倆究竟是哪一個玩得較開心呢? 這一切一切經歷都要慢慢思考才寫得好， 在未執筆之前先跟大家分享這點滴。


But then I got distracted, and moved back to writing amongst other bits and pieces, UK and Taiwan (yes, my blog name LivingUKTaiwan is a bit of a give away), and then Germany and Poland. Petra is still on my list but there’s been so many people who have written about Petra already, and done a brilliant job of it. I didn’t want to write a mediocre post or just do a descriptive post, it would be much easier just to direct yor to Wikipedia or the Jordan Tourism Board.

I have so much that I want to tell you myself about my time at Petra. Like my walk down the Siq and my first glimpse of The Treasury.


Or the contrast between my first day there, and the second morning when I returned and there was a flash flood. Everyone had to be evacuated from the site by trucks down the Siq. In fact, I may be able to better a lot of other writers here as I don’t think this happens very often.


I want to share about the hike up the mountains to the upper part of Petra. Going past the beautiful rock formations and rose-red sandstone. Breath taking views all the way, and suddenly out of nowhere, there’s a stall selling souvenirs, handmade bags and scarves etc.


Or the moment when I got to the top, and saw the magnificent Monastery. Looking at the photo, it doesn’t look that big, but in fact it’s 45m high. When you stand in front of it, you wonder, how on earth did the Nabataeans manage to carve this out from the rocks back in the 1st century? Food for thought there.


I also want to share with you my thoughts on the use of animals for tourism here. Donkeys and camels are a common sight. It’s great for the locals as it’s income for them, great for tourist as they have the comfort of others doing the hard work when they don’t want to walk around or don’t have the energy to ascend up the steep mountains themselves. Just hop on the donkeys and camels. But what about the poor creatures? Who’s looking out for them?


And finally, I want to talk about the wonderful people I met at Petra. Such as this cheeky little kid who wanted to do a high five, and then mischievously tried to grab money off me!!!


There’s so much I want share about Petra, but I need to gather my thoughts and do a proper job of it. In the meanwhile, I’m going to share some of these snippets with you first. I will be back with Petra soon.